Seven years ago, I walked into a conference room at the headquarters of an investment advisory firm in Tysons Corner, Virginia, as an intern at the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard. The docket for the day? To hammer out the first draft of what would eventually become the Institute’s Real FiduciaryTM Practices for financial advisers.
The idea was to identify “best practices” that fiduciary financial advisers adhere to in their relationships with clients. That meant drafting a professional code of conduct based on fiduciary principles that protect the interests of clients who place their trust in the adviser sitting across the table from them. We wanted to set the bar high.
